Arabs Take a Look at Their Dictators

The click-click of toppling dominoes in Eastern Europe has caught the ear of Arab editorialists surveying totalitarian regimes in their own region.

Spurred by unconfirmed reports that Arab mercenaries had taken up arms in Romania to defend the collapsing dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, Arab leaders and commentators issued sharp denials early this week.

In Baghdad, visiting Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat called in East European ambassadors to reject published rumors that Palestinians--an estimated 4,000 are studying in Romania--had taken part in the fighting. Instead, he charged, they were attacked by revolutionary forces motivated by a “spiteful and unjust media campaign” that he attributed to pro-Israeli propaganda.

Officials of Syria, Libya and Iran, whose citizens were also mentioned in the reports, issued similar denials.

The Federation of Arab News Agencies declared that the charges were designed “to harm the cordial relations between Europe and the Arab world.”

But in the aftermath of the denials, several columnists speculated on the possibility that the reports held a measure of truth and asked what it meant for strongman rule in the 22 Arab countries, where democracy is a fragile experiment in just a few.

“That handful of Arabs, some of whom were reportedly killed in Romania, were probably not mercenaries hired by the Bucharest regime to help its militias,” wrote Abdelwahab Badrakhan in Al Hayat, a London-based Lebanese daily. “They were most likely youths who had been sent there for training, only to find themselves in the thick of deadly real-life maneuvers with live ammunition.

“Ceausescu and his regime had become an authority, a school at which presidents and regimes elsewhere were taught the art of survival,” the columnist said, warning: “The end which befell Ceausescu may yet serve as a lesson to his students.”

But Badrakhan was doubtful. “The Arab Ceausescus--of whom there are many examples--have outdone their mentor in their ability to dress up their dictatorial rule in patriotic slogans; to strangle their people’s spirit and character and then glorify their submission and silence; to perpetuate massacres, and make sure the lesson is not lost on anyone who dares resist the process of mass brainwashing. . . .”

The columnists have judiciously named no names but have expressed hope that the lesson learned would lead to an easing of autocratic rule.

Some have called on Arab leaders to review standing commitments in view of the historic upheavals in Eastern Europe. For instance, Al Fajr, the Palestinian daily published in East Jerusalem, warned officials to note that the pro-Palestinian positions of the ousted Communist regimes had become “devoid of meaning.” Successor governments, the Al Fajr commentator wrote, may seek to overturn old policies.

Ahmed Jarallah, publisher of the Kuwaiti daily As Siyassah, targeted rulers of Arab countries where, he wrote, “electric current has been applied to the bodies of political dissidents before it has reached rural villages.”

“Had these states of the Middle East been run by clean governments, they would have been among the world’s richest countries,” Jarallah suggested, thereby absolving Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf emirates, all among the richest but none with a functioning parliament.

Although expressing hope that the lesson of Eastern Europe will not be lost in the Arab world, some commentators noted pessimistically that their culture’s leaders are rarely questioned.

Another Al Hayat columnist remarked:

“Just as the ruler was right when he first imposed those ridiculous policies, so he is right when he now says that they were a failure and should be changed. There is no chance that what is happening in Eastern Europe will be emulated in the Arab world, inconceivable that Arab citizens will one day wake up to hear that an Arab Gustav Husak has resigned and announced so himself.

“Instead they will hear that the masses have pleaded with the Arab Husak to remain in his post.”